This week's news: Great user posts, The NY Times, and captchas!

Brenda, Shine Community Manager

Hi everyone,

If you read the New York Times last week I'm sure you were as excited as myself to see the Style section cover story on Shine's own Editor-in-chief, Brandon Holley! The article, titled "The Beat Goes online, Minus the Glitz - Brandon Holley/Shine", chronicled Brandon's successful career transition from the magazine world to the Internet. It also discussed Shine's amazing growth as a leader in the highly competitive woman's lifestyle market, and even included a specific reference to Shine user J. Montana's post "How Many Times a Day Do Men Think About Sex?". While the story focused on Brandon I want to congratulate all of you; it's because of your passion and involvement that Shine has become such a lively and thriving community, one more than worthy of being featured in one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world!

Here are this week's picks of great user posts:

1. Starting a new workout routine can be BRUTAL - Wanna join me? by Sarah Y

2. The very real frustrations of motherhood by M

3. The Power of Not Having Too Much by Leslie D

I'm also happy to announce the launch of Captchas, which will be used on our "create a blog page". This technology will help us ensure the validity of every post on Shine and significantly limit the amount of spam on the site. Your input was greatly appreciated as we made the decision to move forward with this new feature, thanks to everyone who provided feedback. Please be careful to enter captchas correctly when posting your entry or saving a draft. There is currently a problem where new slide shows (image galleries) may be lost if captchas are entered incorrectly. We are working on a fix for this, but wanted to let everyone know just in case. Thank you!